


Gone for Soldiers

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Series: Gone for Soldiers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Content, walking wounded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missions make them feel better: getting a good punch in, cracking a few ribs, beating the bad guys. They both like pretending that the world is black-and-white for a few hours or a few days, however long it takes to get the job done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone for Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially a series of sequential drabbles knitted together into a story. After seeing all the set photos coming from _The Winter Soldier_ , I'm full of Steve/Natasha/Bucky feels, and couldn't help myself.

After the Winter Soldier is taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, Fury starts sending Steve and Natasha out together. Neither of them are any good to him in New York; they're too shaken and preoccupied, too haunted. So he sends them out where their ghosts – where _he_ – can't follow them.

They're a good team: her cunning and adaptability matched to his strength and tactical expertise. The missions make them feel better: getting a good punch in, cracking a few ribs, beating the bad guys. They both like pretending that the world is black-and-white for a few hours or a few days, however long it takes to get the job done.

It doesn't take long for them to figure out that neither of them really sleeps at night, so they stay up together, silently prowling the dark alleys of Los Angeles or Kiev or Frankfurt in plainclothes, waiting to hear a cry for help and fly into action.

More often than not, they'd rather be out of their hotel rooms, anyway. Every once in a while, the mission calls for a swanky room in a Ritz-Carlton or a Hilton, but "undercover" usually means stained carpets and scratchy sheets.

He likes her. He sees the soldier in her, in the straight line of her back and the way she stands, with her feet planted firmly on the ground. It's something he recognizes. Something familiar.

It's their fifth time out together, bunked in what must be Chicago's seediest hotel, when Natasha knocks on his door. Steve lets her in without comment. She has a bottle of Stoli in one hand and a pair of shot glasses in the other. All three hit the veneered chipboard table with a loud _clink_. As she twists off the cap, she meets his gaze. His eyebrows are raised, surprise and uncertainty plain on his face.

She just shrugs, palming the cap and filling the tiny glasses. "Goddamn Barnes," she mutters. Something sympathetic and a little wistful crosses her face as she passes a glass to him.

He smiles a little. Before this, before Bucky came back, he hadn't ever thought that he would have something in common with her. He realizes now how shortsighted he had been. As if a veil had been pulled away, he sees her as she is: strong, but lonely. Hurt, but angry. They aren't so different.

Steve takes the shot glass from her, swallows its contents in one gulp.

"Ugh," he makes a face, "'S like drinking gasoline."

Her lips curve up into a smile as she pours them another round. He stretches out on the bed; she kicks her feet up onto the table.

"The more you drink, the less it burns."

They talk for a long while – about the mission at first, then about everything, _anything_ , else. They both know that they'll be spending the next day dodging bullets and trying not to get killed and, for a perverse moment, Steve's hit with a wave of nostalgia. What's so different, really, between what they're doing now and sitting in a foxhole with Morita or Dum Dum or Bucky?

It takes a lot of shots before Natasha's eyelids start to droop. When she moves to the bed, trying not to stumble on her way there, and lies down next to him, Steve doesn't tell her not to.

After a long, silent moment, she taps him on the shoulder.

"Get the lights, will you?"

*

It gets to be a habit, one of them showing up at the other's door with some kind of offering: cartons full of takeout food or a bottle of booze. They call them "debriefings," and they usually end up falling asleep next to each other.

After a while, Natasha starts making their hotel reservations for missions, putting them in one room instead of two, not bothering with the pretense that they might sleep separately. She tells Fury she's trying to save the agency money, which earns her a dry look but no contradictions.

Most nights they sleep together laid out in parallel lines, but Steve likes knowing he's not alone, even if they aren't touching. He thinks she likes it too. After hard fights or particularly violent interrogations, they sleep with his big arms wrapped around her waist, pressing his front to her back, warming them both through.

She's entirely different when she's asleep: her brow smooths and her mouth relaxes. She looks ten years younger. But when she frowns in her sleep, when her fists clench, Steve knows a nightmare is coming, knows that she is only moments away from crying out and waking herself up. It's then that Steve pulls her against his chest. It's then that Natasha lets herself wrap her arms around him. When the nightmares are at their worst, she lets him kiss her cheekbones and neck and run his hands through her hair until she feels herself even out.

When it's Steve who jerks awake, it takes all the strength Natasha has to pin him down, to wake him up. Every time, he apologizes. She doesn't say anything, just fits her body against his, her hand stroking the back of his neck, and waits until he falls asleep again. There's something friendly about the way she touches him. Friendly in the way that it's comforting and easy, not overly-charged with feeling or expectations. It feels better than he wants it to. Better than either of them are ready to admit.

Back in New York, they go their separate ways. They both try to talk to Bucky – or whoever he is now – but he's a million miles away. Fury assures them that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s doctors will keep hammering away at him, but it's cold comfort.

*

They spend a lot of time together in cars. When the missions are domestic, they spend endless hours driving across country on their way to their next assignment, stopping only to load up on gas and fast food. Steve has a natural inclination towards tidiness, but after Natasha tells him that Fury hates it when S.H.I.E.L.D. cars come back messy, they start turning their backseats into trash dumps.

When they get back, Natasha shows him how to file his reports and which forms need to be filled out in triplicate. She laughs when he rolls his eyes at the bureaucratic absurdity of it.

In New York, he only ever sees her inside the confines of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sleek New York headquarters, most often at Fury's daily briefings. Even in a crowd, they start to gravitate towards each other: she'll takes the empty seat next to him, or he'll suddenly find that he's moved to stand next to her. Surrounded by their teammates and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he tries valiantly not to think about the fact that he knows what it's like to wake up with her warm in his arms.

*

When they don't fall asleep in their clothes, when they still have the energy to change, Steve slips into a t-shirt and sweatpants. Natasha sleeps in leggings and tank tops.

Steve has come to think of her as a friend, but the blood that courses through his veins is just as red as anyone else's, and the first time he realizes that she isn't wearing a bra, he goes to great lengths to hide his body's reaction. He turns his back to her, pretending to sleep while she reads. After a while, she turns off the light. The mattress dips as she slides under the covers.

"Hey," she says, a little gruffly.

He grunts in response.

"Come here," she pulls at his arm and he tries not to budge. She huffs, "I'm on to you. I won't take it personally."

Steve turns his face to her and in the dim light, she just barely sees his eyebrow raise. "You probably should."

Natasha bites the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling.

"Just don't—Don't be so far away."

His jaw clenches. Refusal is impossible. He uses some of his indomitable-super-soldier willpower to force down his erection and lets her curl herself around him, her head on his shoulder.

*

Steve wants to know how it ended, his war. He finds out about Auschwitz and Dachau, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his nightmares take on a new dimension.

Maybe it's because of who he is, because he still wears the stars and stripes, but he decides it's his responsibility to know what else happened while he was asleep. He reads about My Lai and Agent Orange and the Hanoi Hilton. He reads about 9/11 and Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. His bad dreams turn into night terrors.

It seems unfair, in a way, he thinks, that everyone else has had decades to adjust to the idea that these terrible things have happened while he uncovers them all at once. When Natasha finally tells him to stop seeking out the things he wished he could have prevented, he listens to her.

She would never – _never_ – tell him, but she's glad he knows what they all know, now: the truths about what people are capable of. Some of his softness, his innocence, fades. His skin grows a little thicker, and Natasha feels like they can understand each other a little better.

*

She's not shy about her scars, but then she's not shy about most things. One night, she pulls up the hem of her shirt to show him the worst one – a thick, silvery band stretched across the curve of her lower back. He can't stop his fingers from tracing the raised line, trying not to imagine how bad the injury must have been. Her skin, even the scar tissue, is soft under his touch and he forces himself to pull his hand away.

Fury starts to look at them more sternly during debriefings. They get the job done, but he can see them going off-script, taking matters into their own hands. He's especially surprised at Steve. His reputation had led Fury to believe that he would be more obedient. When he tries to reassign them, they revolt, insisting on staying together.

Steve knows that he feels too much for her already. It's unprofessional and compromising, and a part of him wishes that he could stop himself. But things feel right when he's with her. The world makes a little more sense when the two of them laugh at it together. He's not prepared to push that away.

*

They spend months going out on missions, curling up in bed together every night and never mentioning it after they turn in their hotel room keys.

She always calls him "Cap," in public and in bed, until the night she doesn't. Neither of them had been able to sleep, but Natasha insists that they get under the covers, turn out the lights, and at least _try_.

After a while of lying awake in the dark, Natasha shifts next to him, leans up, and presses her lips to his. She feels like she's resisted it for ages, this simple touch. Of course she wants him, she would have to be made of stone not to, and she's felt his reaction to the press of her body enough times to know that he wants her, too. But she doesn't want him to be like all the others – another conquest, another job – and he isn't. He's more.

Her hands snake around his shoulders and he slides his fingers under her tank top. He doesn't mind the sharp taste of vodka on her tongue as it licks into his mouth.

He doesn't know how far she wants to take this, and even though his hands seem sure as they move across her back, he stumbles a little mentally. When he moves his mouth to her throat, kissing the sharp line of her collarbone, she weaves her fingers into his hair and gasps, " _Steve_."

They stay wrapped around each other, kissing and touching, for another half-hour, but in the end, they're both too exhausted to take it further. There's a part of Steve – and not a small part – that doesn't want her like this, on assignment, with the weight of the world hanging over them. If they make love, he wants it to be in a bed one of them owns, with an endless expanse of time stretched out in front of them.

She clings to him without meaning to, and he pulls her close to him. They fall asleep on their sides with one of her legs draped across the curve of his waist.

A month's worth of missions end like this, with heavy petting and heavy breathing in dark hotel rooms. Steve yearns to take it further, but lets her set the pace, achingly slow as it may be.

*

He finally asks her about Clint, because any idiot can tell he's in love with her. He thinks it's just the right thing to do, to make sure that he's not going to disrupt the team with whatever it is they're doing together. She tells him that they were together, once, that they had been partners, but that she ended it long ago. She says he's like a brother to her, and Steve can't help but cringe for Clint's sake.

*

They're good enough that it takes weeks before they suffer their first serious casualty. They're tracking a terrorist group through Madrid when a series of explosions rocks their hotel. They make their way to the lobby, ushering civilians out of the building, when the second round goes off. When Steve finds Natasha through the smoke and fire, she's lying on her back, her right arm a scorched, bleeding mess. For a crazed moment, he wants to call out for a medic, but he knows there isn't one. Because this is a different kind of war.

"Where's—," she gasps, her face lit up in red and orange, "There was a woman with a child—"

Steve looks around, but they're alone. "They're fine. They got out." He's told so many half-truths to wounded soldiers.

She smiles. Her teeth are outlined in red. "'S what I get for trying to be a goddamn hero."

He smiles back and tells her to keep quiet. He gets her outside and an ambulance takes her to a hospital. When she's stabilized, S.H.I.E.L.D. flies her back to New York so their doctors can fix her up.

When he visits her in the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital ward, she's bandaged from shoulder to wrist, but she's sitting upright. He tries not to think about the parallel it makes to Bucky's metal left arm. She gives him a small smile when he walks in and sits next to her.

He clears his throat, looking at his hands. "I got to thinking about how S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have a habit of giving credit where it's due, and the way you got that—," he gestures to her arm and pulls a small, rectangular black box out of his jacket pocket, "I think you should have this."

She looks at him skeptically as she takes it. It looks suspiciously like a jewelry box, and, lame arm or not, she's pretty sure that kind of gift is going to earn him a swift kick in the head. But when she opens it, it's not that at all.

She runs the fingers of her good hand across the purple ribbon, traces the outline of the gold and enamel heart.

"I can't take this," she says quietly.

He shrugs and smiles, "I got a spare. This one's yours."

He tells her he has to meet Fury. Before he leaves, he presses a kiss to the crown of her head, one of his big hands on her shoulder, and tells her to get better.

He's almost out the door when she says "Thank you," almost so quietly that he doesn't hear it. But he does. He turns and raises his hand to his brow. It's not a regulation salute, but it makes her smile.

*

It's not all blood and groping, though. They watch terrible movies on cable together and eat too much takeout and drink too much. They get ready together in the mornings, hovering around each other as they brush their teeth and comb their hair and suit up.

Between sharing a room and fixing each other up after fights, they grow accustomed to seeing each other in various states of undress. She finds out that he still wears his dog tags under his clothes.

"Are these vintage?" she asks one morning, leaning against the counter of a white tiled bathroom in the Cairo Hilton. She shifts closer and snatches one up, her fingers grazing his bare chest.

He shrugs and smiles, wiping shaving cream off his chin with a damp washcloth, "Like me."

She runs her fingers over the imprinted lettering:

STEPHEN G ROGERS

O-1275455 T42-43 O

JAMES BARNES

1404 ALAMEDA AVE

BROOKLYN, NY C

Natasha gives him a wry look. She had thought _she_ was hung up on Barnes, but _God_ , he's been wearing his name around his neck for seventy years.

"I had to get special permission from my CO for that. Since we weren't related."

"Did he get permission, too?"

"His CO was a little more understanding than mine," he says, and he _winks_ at her.

That night, after they shower the stinging heat of the day off of them, she finally asks him about Bucky. He tells her what it was like to grow up with him. Tells her about how they struggled to make ends meet, how Bucky took care of him when he was sick and chased away his bullies. He tells her how they shared an apartment, shared a life. He doesn't tell her everything, but she gives him a knowing look and squeezes his hand, and he knows that she heard all the things he didn't say.

She finally tells him how she knew him. How she loved him. She tells Steve how they met, how he flattered and cajoled her into his bed. She tells him how young she was then, and how she thought - _hoped_ \- they would always be together.

When she tells him, when he tells her, something shifts between them. There are fewer secrets. Fewer places to hide.

*

They spend a week in Dallas, where Fury has tasked them with taking down a human trafficking ring. Neither of them like this kind of assignment – the missions where it's less about roundhouse kicks and more about sad-eyed victims. But it's work that has to be done.

On their last night, they stay up late talking about nothing in particular, trying not to think about the awful things they've seen in the last few days. They both skirt around what they need: contact, and a reminder that they might still have something worth having.

Darkness always grants them a little boldness, though. After the lights go out, she pulls him on top of her, between her legs, pressing her fully-clothed hips against his until he can do nothing else but grind back, his mouth against hers. Her fingers are woven in his hair and her thighs are tight around his waist. She lets him pull her top off, arching her back as his hands trace the outline of her breasts.

Somewhere around the time Steve starts moving against her in earnest, the hard ridge of his erection sliding against her through layers of fabric, she cries out and rocks beneath him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him against her. He comes in his sweats, and he's too relieved to feel embarrassed. But he's pretty sure she came too, so maybe it isn't that embarrassing, anyway.

When he tries to shift off of her, her arms tighten around him.

"Stay," she says.

He nuzzles the side of her neck, "'M too heavy." He's also starting to worry about the mess he's made, which he's certain she must be aware of, but she doesn't let go of him.

"Don't go." She tells herself she's not begging. Really, she isn't. "Don't."

He sighs into the joint between her neck and shoulder, feeling in way over his head. He hugs her against his chest and rolls them onto one side. When they finally sink into sleep, one of his legs is still caught between hers.

*

Tony's not really part of the team anymore, not since the retirement he can't stop talking about, but he acts like he is, and he retains his status as an "Adviser." He insists on team-building activities, poker nights and movie nights, mostly. Steve starts to suspect that, despite his fame, he might not have many friends.

Their so-called "bonding" nights are mostly innocuous, and sometimes fun, though Steve finds it hard to look Clint in the eye after what happened in Dallas. Clint and Tony are usually in charge of movie selection, but Natasha quickly vetoes war movies. She knows that Steve still gets flashbacks – she's seen him crumple under the weight of them – and whenever Tony brings up _Apocalypse Now_ or suggests they use Steve to check the accuracy of _Band of Brothers_ , Natasha threatens to leave until they cave and pick something harmless and light.

*

He knows she's seeing Bucky – but she calls him James – when they're in New York. He figures it out on his own, but she tells him, too. She tells him that he isn't better, that he doesn't remember Steve at all. She says all he does is sneer and swear at her and she can only take it for about twenty minutes at a time. She tells Steve not to see him, not yet. She tries to tell him that there might still be hope, and he tries to believe her.

But he doesn't take her advice, not exactly. He spends hours just watching him through the two-way mirror that overlooks his cell. Steve watches as he paces, watches him pick at his food, watches him scream at no one. He only lets Natasha know how much it breaks his heart.

*

They've been in Reykjavik for a week. It's the middle of winter, and the dark and cold is almost more than Steve can take. The mission is a milk run, and they can't help but feel like Fury is thumbing his nose at them.

The near-constant darkness breaks their internal clocks; they stay up too late and sleep the mornings away. It's their third, interminable night there and, like the two nights before, it ends with Natasha in his arms, her fingers buried in his hair, her mouth hot against his.

His mind wanders a little, but not far. He thinks about the things she's given him: her kisses, her gentle touches and her rough ones, the feel of her clenching around him as she comes, the pride he feels in knowing that he can make her do that without even undressing her. He thinks about how she has his back, and about how he has hers.

He pulls himself away, taking her face in his hands.

"What is this?"

In the dim light of the room, her brow creases and she bites her lower lip.

"I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't question it too much."

Steve hesitates. He _wants_ to question it, not because he wants it to stop – ever – but because he longs to know where he stands with her. He doesn't think Natasha has _boyfriends_ – the word seems silly and insufficient, and like the kind of thing she would scoff at – and he certainly doesn't mistake the carnage they inflict together for _dates_ , but, he thinks, there must be something in between that describes them.

Natasha sighs. She knows him too well; she knows what he wants, and she knows that she's terrible at it. Back in New York, she watches Tony and Pepper, or Thor and Jane, and, while she finds their displays of affection revolting, she doesn't understand why it comes so easily to some people when it's so hard for her.

"I…" she starts and stops, then forces herself to keep talking. His eyes are fixed on her, and she makes herself return his gaze, "I like you. I like us." She clears her throat. "Do you?"

"God, _yes_ ," he says, pulling her back against him, his mouth on the side of her neck. It wasn't much, but it was all he needed.

She wants to tell him more. She wants to tell him that the thought of him follows her everywhere, now. She wants to tell him how she wants them to be together in New York, too: to go out to movies and restaurants and make love and find out what it's like to be normal. But instead she just lets him kiss her for a while longer, lets him whisper her name into the darkness and run his hands over her aching body until they're both drained. She falls asleep with her hand in his.

They sleep in late; when Natasha's eyes open, the few hours of daylight they will see that day have already commenced, filling the room with cool, grey light. Steve's arms are around her and he's pressing hard against her hip. It's certainly not the first time she's felt it, but somehow, after the night before, it feels like the first time she can do something about it.

She lowers her hand and traces the outline of him through his heather-gray sweatpants; he moans and presses against her fingers, his eyes still closed. The sound makes her press her thighs together to dampen the growing throb between her legs.

His eyes blink open and he looks down at her. The sight of her is overwhelming: her sleep-tousled hair and bare face. Her lips are parted, her breathing already growing heavier as her hand moves. She looks back at him and he sees her, sees everything, and it lays him low. He _loves_ this. He loves _her_.

She lifts his sweats away and down, letting him bob free for a moment before she takes him in hand. His erection is even more than she expected (and Natasha considers herself something of a connoisseur): impressive in both length and girth, smooth and pink, emerging proudly from a thatch of dark blond curls.

He sighs and his breath catches a little. Her gaze flickers up to his, he gives her a sleepy half-smile, and suddenly she wants him, not just because he's beautiful, but because it's _him_. Because she feels safe when he holds her, and she hadn't known that she needed that. Because no matter where they go, he always manages to find a place that has extra spicy Pad Kee Mao, because he knows it's her favorite. Because he's just as deadly as she is, even though he would never admit it.

"Is this part of what makes you so super?" she tries to smile coyly, but she can hear that her voice is too thick with feeling.

He snorts, also trying for levity, "Nah. I had this before I became a lab rat."

She buries her face against his chest and moves her hand slowly up and down, twisting at the wrist.

His jaw clenches and he bends his head towards hers. He whispers her name against her hair as she strokes him. All he can think about is how wonderful it would be to make love to her in the daylight, when so much of their relationship has been conducted in the dark.

Then, his hands are on the sides of her waist, gently rolling onto her back. Her hand falls away from him and he lets himself miss her touch, only for a second. His fingers hook into the waistband of her leggings and he pulls slightly. When he looks up at her, her eyebrows are slightly raised, but he ignores her surprise and trails a line of kisses along stomach. He doesn't even know when he started wanting this – wanting her – but it suddenly feels like it's been a long time.

His hand is between her legs, feeling the heat of her through the fabric. She is writhing and gasping under his attentions, and he's sure she doesn't want him to stop, but he needs to hear her say it.

"Tell me…you want…" he gasps. Instead of answering, she lifts her hips, shimmying out of the leggings and the surprisingly demure white cotton panties she wears under them, throwing both to the floor. He doesn't miss a beat, burying his face between her thighs, his tongue seeking out and finding her most sensitive spots.

She's not at all like he thought she'd be. He half expected her to wrest control away from him, to flip him or pin him or throw him across the room. But instead she just whimpers and fists the sheets in her little hands. Her knees go limp on his shoulders, he settles into a languorous, intense rhythm, two thick fingers pushing into her until she cries out.

He reaches up with his free hand and takes one of hers. When he squeezes, she squeezes back. A jolt of energy shoots from her hand, down his arm and his heart feels like it's about to burst out of his chest. She's hot and slick and beautiful. It's so much better than he thought it would be.

Her orgasm rolls over her, deep and powerful, blooming out from the very core of her. It leaves her panting and trembling. He slides over her, planting a delicate kiss on the curve of her shoulder, but she grabs him by the hair and pulls his mouth up to hers, eager to find out what they taste like together.

Something inside Natasha chastises her for letting herself get so weak over him, but her fingers are hooked in his waistband anyway. Her hand brushes against his erection and he groans.

When the transponder goes off, they both jump. Natasha's hands fly away, as though someone had walked in on them. He growls in frustration, lifting himself off of her to find his uniform. Before he goes, he murmurs near her ear, "We _will_ be finishing this later."

They're called out of Iceland and back on the road by afternoon.

*

Everything goes upside-down for the next few days. The fighting gets tough; it seems like they're both getting the shit kicked out of them on an hourly basis. When they get back to New York, they're battered and bloody; their mission is accomplished, but just barely.

After S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical team patches them up, she corners him in the headquarters' lobby, stops him in his tracks with a hand on his arm.

"Take me to your place," she says, "I want to see how you live."

He just nods dumbly and she follows him underground and onto the F Line to Brooklyn.

It's nice, his apartment. Obviously something S.H.I.E.L.D. has given him, but with a few signs of life: dirty dishes in the sink, a stack of sketchpads on the coffee table.

She walks through it like an inspector: examining the books on his shelves, peering into his kitchen, walking down his hallway nudging open closed doors to reveal an empty spare room, a bathroom, and finally, his bedroom. He follows behind. She spends a quiet moment absorbing the space, taking in his California King with its soft grey spread.

Out of nowhere, she pulls a fast one on him, a less-deadly version of a move he's seen her pull a hundred times, and his back is pressed against the mattress. She's warm and soft over him, her legs straddling his hips. She presses her mouth against his and he reaches up for her.

"Here? Are you sure?" _God_ , he hopes she's sure. But he knows what it means: that they can't pretend what they do together is just comfort from combat anymore.

She nods, "Unless you—"

She can't help but cringe when she hears how vulnerable she sounds, but she hasn't let anyone in this far since James, and—

"No," he says quickly his hands drifting down her back to her hips, "Yes. Whichever." The relief at knowing that they are finally going to have this together makes him a little giddy, and he can't help the smile that spreads across his face.

She sits up abruptly. Her face is flushed and her hips are still pressed into his.

"You've—You've done this before."

It isn't exactly a question, but Steve nods anyway and her face relaxes a little.

"Good," she flashes a half-smile. "Stark had this pool going."

His eyebrows shoot up. "And what did you bet on?"

"I didn't participate," she says nobly, her back straightening. "I just—I don't do first timers."

He sits up, balancing her on his lap, his teeth and tongue tracing down the side of her neck to her shoulder. "Shouldn't be a problem, then."

She knows that this is the part where she should be telling him the rules for sleeping with her: no feelings, no clinging, no overnight stays (though that one has already been shot to hell). But he smells like Old Spice – and _no one_ smells like that anymore – and she loves the way she feels in his arms, and he keeps saying her name and it sounds perfect.

Things progress quickly from there. Steve can't keep track of exactly how it happens, but his clothes are off, and then her clothes are off, and then he has her spread across his bed, her knees on either side of his waist. Her eyes are bright and glassy as she looks up at him, her hands are pressed into his shoulders. He lowers his hand to position himself but hesitates, pulls back, and curses under his breath.

"I don't have any condoms. I didn't think—"

She frowns and shakes her head, "I'm on the pill and I'm clean. I'm not…with anyone else."

He grins, "Me neither."

She can't help smiling back, because his smile is beautiful and contagious and she just feels _happy_.

"Then come back."

For a moment he just covers her, his body heavy and warm above her. Then, she feels his velvety tip at her center, pushing into her, filling her up slowly. Next to her ear, she hears him release a long, shuddering sigh. His hips slowly start to rock back and forth, and the gentle friction makes her toes curl.

"Wanted this," he gasps, and she can hear him coming apart, "Wanted you."

She takes his face in her hands and leans up to kiss him. When she bucks her hips against his, he takes the hint and moves faster, gliding in and out of her in long, deep strokes. It doesn't take long for him to figure out which angles make her cry out and clench her hands in his hair.

It doesn't feel like fooling around, it doesn't even feel like sex. It feels like making love. She's only done this once before, with a man she lost, maybe forever, and now with Steve. It suddenly hits her that this is why she had put this off for so long, because she knew that he would be gentle and reverent, that he would make her want so badly to love him. And she can't afford to do that again, now or ever.

He brushes up against the tender patch of nerves inside of her and she hooks her ankles at the small of his back, her fingernails digging into arms. The weight of him presses against her clitoris. A few more strokes and she's done for, sobbing his name as her body spasms around his.

He follows right after and everything is warm and wet. He rolls off of her, still too breathless to speak. After a long moment, he pulls her against him, pressing a kiss to her forehead with his eyes squeezed shut.

She thinks about asking him to keep this private, not a secret, exactly, just something between them. But, she thinks as she watches him drift off, to hell with the others. To hell with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers Initiative, and Fury. She doesn't care who knows. They've earned this; they _deserve_ it.

Fury lets them have the weekend, and they hole up together, only leaving his bed to find food or the bathroom or something to read while the other sleeps. Two days later, they're back in the field, swinging into battle side by side.

*

The missions don't let up; Fury keeps sending them out, over and over, until they both start to feel themselves crack under the strain. They punch and shoot and shout questions at a rotating cast of villains, then fall into bed together at the end of the day.

She teaches him how to swear in Russian and he makes her laugh with his poor pronunciation. They swap S.H.I.E.L.D. gossip. They spend their off hours at his apartment. She makes them piroshky in his kitchen.

She waits a full two weeks before she breaks out the ropes and blindfolds. She's surprised at how game he is, how willing he is to let her make him vulnerable, how much he trusts her. It's not her usual style, but on occasion, she still lets him make love to her like he did the first night, slow and tender, even though it makes her feel exposed, like her heart is beating outside of her chest for everyone – for _him_ – to see.

It's another week before Bruce asks Steve about Natasha, and he doesn't deny that they're together, at least he thinks they are, and word gets around. Tony is delighted, if only because he seems to have a never-ending stream of nicknames for them, most of which are pop culture references Steve doesn't understand. Clint doesn't talk to either of them for a month. Natasha never says a word against him to anyone, just lets him work through it on his own.

*

There's a second apocalypse, and a third and a fourth. Tony comes back and the five of them reassemble, keeping the world safe from its foes.

Bucky comes back, too; his head's turned right side up again, more or less, and he fights alongside them. It feels good – it feels _amazing_ – to look over and see him, just like the old days.

Steve sees the way Bucky and Natasha flow together, their nonverbal communication just as effective and subtle as the language he has invented with each of them, separately. He can't help the twist in his gut when he sees them together: their closeness, the intimacy and history they share.

After their latest fight, they drop Bucky off at S.H.I.E.L.D. and Natasha takes Steve back to her place. It's an empty, drafty loft. She has a TV on an overturned milk crate and a tower of books and a hot plate and a mattress on the floor with a lamp next to it.

She looks up at him sheepishly. She never brings anyone here and she knows how pitiful it looks.

"I just don't like to have a lot of things," she grumbles, bending down to turn on the light "I got tired of moving all this _stuff_ from place to place and—"

"You don't have to explain," he interrupts, "I like it."

She raises an eyebrow at him, but he's telling the truth. He gets it. It makes sense here, where life isn't filled with the cheap, plastic nonsense people of this century are so attracted to.

She leads him to her bathroom, a tiny, dingy space made better by hot water and dry fluffy towels. Showering together has become part of their post-battle ritual, something that feels comradely until one of them makes a move. This time, it's Steve who pulls her against him. He kisses her for a long time. When she feels him go hard against her hip, she moves to slide her hands between their bodies, but he steps away, leaving her alone in the shower while he towels off.

Natasha waits five minutes before she follows him.

When she comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped tight around her chest, he's sitting on her mattress, his legs bent up high. He's already changed into the sweats and t-shirt from the bag he always carries with him.

"What the hell?" she growls. It's easier to be frustrated and angry than confused.

He just looks up at her, his blue eyes cloudy and distant.

"It's okay if you still love him."

She huffs, and sits down next to him, her brow furrowed, her lips slightly parted. He knows that she didn't hear what he said, she heard what he wanted to say: _It's okay if you love him instead of me_.

"That's not…It's more complicated than that," she murmurs, barely audible, her eyes on the floor.

It's always this way between them. As brutally honest as she can be, there's a part of her that never says what she means. She still keeps – will always keep – part of herself hidden and, he supposes, so will he. But they're getting better at figuring each other out.

Steve reaches over and takes her hand in his. She knows he's looking at her, waiting for her to keep going, but she keeps her eyes down and chastises herself for her own cowardice. She's going to tell him, she decides. She's really going to.

"Before him, I had never been with anyone else. Not like that."

Steve cringes a little. He didn't know, and for a second he can't believe he never guessed that Bucky had been her first.

"He's a part of me," she looks up and her hand curls around the back of his head, forcing him to look at her, "So are you."

"I know," he says quietly, "He's…for me, too."

She tries to say something else, but her voice cracks and the sound of it floors him. He pulls her against them and says enough for them both. He tells her how he thinks about her (all the time), and how he wants to be with her (every minute), and how he's hers, hers, _hers_.

He stops short of telling her the whole truth: that he's completely, miserably, dangerously in love with her. He doesn't want her to feel like she has to say it back. He doesn't want her to worry that he'd fall apart if she didn't love him (even if he would).

She reaches for him, wraps herself – arms, legs, heart – around him so tight she's all but climbing inside him. He pulls her onto his lap and pushes the towel away. Her hands dive between them and she finds him still hard under his sweats, even though they've barely done anything yet. Just talking about what he feels for her lights him up from the inside out.

She shoves the fabric out of the way and strokes him until he pants her name, one calloused palm jerking up to cup one of her breasts.

" _Now_ , Nat," he groans and she lifts and lowers her hips over his.

He fills her completely and for a moment, neither of them move. It's what she needs, what they've both needed since the first night she fell asleep next to him. She touches her forehead to his.

"I—" she gasps.

"You don't have to say—" he starts, but she rolls her hips against his and it renders him mercifully speechless.

"This is so big. What we have. I don't know what to do with it."

He runs a hand across her hair, "I know."

Steve leans up to kiss her neck, and without his eyes on her, she feels a little bolder. Her arms fold around his shoulders; her hips rock against him and he surges up. He brings one of his hands to the place where their bodies are joined, his fingers tracing slow, deliberate circles across her clit.

"I just want it to be us. Like this. For…for as long as we want it. Okay?" Her breath is hot by his ear. Steve's heart shoots up to lodge in his throat.

He just nods, because it's all he can trust himself to do. If this is the most she ever says to him, it's enough.

They spend a long night together, and when they step out onto the street in the bright light of the next day, everything is different. As they walk back to headquarters, her hand slips into his, and, for a little while, nothing is wrong.


End file.
